An alternative shutdown deal proposal

William Francisco, For the Express-News

Published 12:44 pm, Wednesday, October 16, 2013

San Antonio — The continued political struggle between the Republican and Democratic parties damages the strength of America, and the viciousness of this fight with one party seeking the total capitulation of the other party, is tearing apart the fabric of our culture.

The ugliness of denying death benefits to our heroes' families is disgusting as is closing or denying access to the memorials to remember and honor our World War II and Vietnam veterans on the Mall and at the battlefield cemeteries. We have heard that instructions from the administration were to make this shutdown hurt. We watched on television Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid counsel the mayor of Washington, D.C. not to mess this things up when the mayor tried to urge Reid to pass a House bill to fund the District Of Columbia.

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All but the most partisan Americans were encouraged with President Obama's early statements of hope, change, transparency, and his promising to end the ugliness of politics in Washington. At the moment we urgently needed a restoration of our economy and jobs; however, the Democratic Party, holding all the cards of power, decided to push passage of other agendas. They made no compromises and jammed through their bills without any other party support, and their Speaker of the House told the members of House to pass a bill and then read what was in it.

Most Democrats have marched in lockstep complying with the instructions from their leaders. The American people were not happy with this situation and rebelled against both the Democratic and Republican parties. The 2010 election brought out many people who had never voted before and significant changes happened in the House. Since the 2010 election the political situation has become much worse with the Senate Majority leader essentially blocking nearly all bills passed by the House. All this political maneuvering has been driven by the upcoming 2014 election.

Reid has made the voter's task in 2014 extremely difficult by denying the members of the Senate the opportunity to vote on the key bills passed by the House. On CNN's Crossfire a Democratic senator described the actions of the Senate majority leader by denying these votes as simply a parliamentary maneuver and then this Senator immediately decried the speaker's use the same parliamentary process to block a vote on the continuing resolution by calling the speaker's action as “holding hostages.”

However to this voter, there is no difference, since the Senate majority leader is holding hostage the American voter's right to know how his or her senator would vote on the key issues affecting our country. It is time to end both “hostage” dramas.

Americans want this destructive shutdown ended in what could be a win-win for America. We, the people, are those under the Constitution who are supposed to be in power. We want to be informed as to where each candidate running for the election in 2014 stands on the issues key to us.

Therefore to achieve this, the president, the Senate majority leader, the speaker, and the members of the Senate and House should sign a deal to end the shutdown that includes:

The Senate majority leader will bring to an unamended vote on the bills, which have been passed by the House within this session of Congress; all senators will agree to vote only yea or nay on each vote. By permitting these votes, he will get a clean vote on the continuing resolution.

The president will publicly agree to join the Senate majority leader and the speaker of the House by formally accepting this proposal. The president will agree to accept the results of all these votes and will not veto those bills passed in this deal to resolve this government shutdown. If the Senate Democrats stay united, none of these bills will pass, so the president need not be concerned when agreeing not veto those that pass.

After the Senate majority leader completes the votes on the House bills and the president signs those bills that pass the Senate, the speaker will bring to a vote an unamended “clean” bill on the continuing resolution.

This deal will take time to implement; therefore, the deal might include a short term extension on the debt limit and short “clean” continuing resolution. All of the actions should be completed by Thanksgiving or all parties to this deal agree to stay in Washington with no breaks until Martin Luther King's birthday. He would proud of us if we are successful in restoring amity to the political process.

As one who votes but has never belonged to any political party, I served our country for over forty years as an infantry, ranger and special forces officer and as a foreign service officer. My only interest in this issue is keeping the United States of America strong both economically and in terms of national security. This shutdown hurts a strong America.

Please write, call, blog and take any legal effort to convince the president, the Senate majority leader, the speaker of the House and members of Congress to sign on to this deal. If current members of Congress fail to reach this deal, then for the 2014 election, we should consider a clean slate of candidates from any party, because they could do not worse than the members we have now.

William (Bill) P. Francisco is a Vietnam veteran and former State Department official.